The Jumbos battled through three challenging contests at last weekend’s College Squash Association (CSA) Team Championships, ultimately progressing to the semifinals before being knocked out by the thinnest of margins. The tournament, which was held at multiple locations in the greater Boston area, divided its 62 participants among eight divisions based on their national rankings. Entering as the No. 28 team in the country, Tufts qualified for the D Division’s Conroy Cup, a step up from its participation in the E Division’s Chaffee Cup last year.
In the first round, Tufts faced a familiar opponent in No. 29 Hamilton. After losing 6-3 on the road to the Continentals early in the season, the Jumbos won by the reverse scoreline during the NESCAC tournament. Friday’s rubber match at MIT proved to be as competitive as the pairs' history would suggest, and Tufts prevailed in a hard-fought 5-4 victory.
After beating their Hamilton opponents in the year’s first two match-ups, co-captains, junior Braden Chiulli and sophomore Aidan Porges, split decisions, with the former losing in five sets (11-8, 11-4, 11-13, 11-13, 11-7) and the latter winning in four (11-2, 7-11, 11-4, 11-9). Sophomore Alan Litman provided the decisive victory from the No. 1 spot with a comfortable 11-7, 11-5, 11-6 win over Hamilton’s Colin O’Dowd.
The victory propelled Tufts into the semifinals, where they faced No. 25 Hobart College — the top ranked team in the Conroy Cup. In the teams’ first match-up since 2013, the Statesmen triumphed with a 5-4 victory. The contest featured two matches that lasted the full five sets, both resulting in victories for the Jumbos. During the first one, first-year Raghav Kumar overcame a 2-1 deficit for an 8-11, 15-13, 9-11, 11-1, 11-6 win. Then, in the sixth match of the day, Porges nearly blew a 2-0 lead against Hobart’s Graham Henderson before rallying to win the decisive fifth set, 12-10.
“Those were two big wins,” first-year Siddharth Jejurikar said. “We [thought] that we were stronger on the bottom end of the ladder, so we knew that we had to pick up those victories in the top five [spots].”
Despite the team's two narrow victories, the Jumbos could not manage to scrape together the additional three wins required to advance, as the Statesmen handily won four matches in straight sets, and first-year Cristian Escalona provided a fifth victory by beating Tufts sophomore Imran Trehan in four sets.
The loss dropped the Jumbos into Sunday’s third-place game against another NESCAC opponent, No. 27 Bowdoin, at the Brooks School in North Andover, Mass. There, Kumar recorded his third victory of the weekend (11-7, 11-4, 12-10), but the Redwood City, Calif. native’s performance was one of the lone bright spots for the Jumbos, as they fell 6-3. Again, two matches were decided in five sets, but this time, both were won by the Polar Bears.
It certainly did not help the Jumbos that Porges suffered a pulled muscle while tied 7-7 in the fifth set of his match. The sophomore co-captain battled, but understandably dropped four consecutive points to provide an abrupt conclusion to an otherwise drawn-out match.
“[Bowdoin] is traditionally one of the better teams in the conference and the nation ... but when you look at the match scores, you realize how close it was,” coach Joe McManus said. “Those kind of matches can go either way.”
The Jumbos’ 1-2 showing at the CSA Championships meant that they ended the season with an overall record of 14-10. Additionally, it guaranteed that the team remained ranked No. 28 in the country to close the year, an improvement of five spots from last year.
In assessing how the tournament plays into the bigger picture for the program, McManus noted the contributions the team received from its younger members.
“I learned about our strengths [this weekend]," McManus said. "Since there aren’t any seniors on this team and we have a great recruiting class coming in, I couldn’t be more excited about the future of the team.”
Jumbos 'racquet' up the intensity at CSA Championships
